Weird Ideas: Holy Spirit. Holy Church.Sýnishorn

Here’s what the Apostles’ Creed says. “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Who is He? What does He do? It doesn’t say. Those seem to be givens in the early Christian community. They just want to make it clear. The Holy Spirit is a big deal. And when it comes to the foundational beliefs of the Christian faith, the Holy Spirit is one of them.

The Holy Spirit tends to get the shaft. People praise and pray to the Father. Many, when they think of God, tend to think solely of the Father. Jesus, of course, is also given primacy. The New Testament and early creeds seem to focus on Him the most. But the Holy Spirit? He’s often disregarded or forgotten. I feel like when someone is talking about God and then mentions the Holy Spirit, a knee-jerk reaction is “Oh yeah, Him too.”

Admittedly the Holy Spirit gets more air time in the Nicene Creed: “And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.” And if you look at the Athanasian Creed, He’s mentioned in equal measure. Maybe to correct an under appreciation for this person of the Godhead.

But maybe the way the Apostles’ Creed minimizes attention on the Holy Spirit hints at something. Despite all His presence, all His power, and all the ways He’s been instrumental through the pages of the Bible from its second verse to nearly its last, the Holy Spirit has always been more interested in directing people to the Father and the Son than to Himself.

God is like that. Think about it. The Father seems to be functionally at the top of the Triune pyramid, yet He gives glory and authority to the Son. Jesus, the Son of God, throughout His ministry submits Himself to the Father and speaks of the coming of the Spirit after Him as something better. And the Spirit? He comes to direct people towards Jesus.

God is a humble God. No person of the Godhead is looking for the spotlight or trying to grab the glory. Each person is always directing attention to another. We can learn something from the way God interacts with Himself. Maybe it’s this. We don’t exist to bring glory to ourselves. We exist to bring glory to God and others. Or as Jesus says, it’s the humble who will be exalted. And the proud? They’ll be brought low.